394 



COBBETT. 



libels were upon tin- F.;nl of Himlwicke. then hold- 

 ing the office of lord lieutenant of Ireland, and 

 others. The trial came on before Lord Ellen- 

 borough and a special jury, on the 24th of May, 

 ',. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and 

 Cobbett was fined 500. Two days after, an ac- 

 tion for damages instituted against Cobbett by 

 Mr Plunket, solicitor general for Ireland (now Lord 

 riunket), was also tried at Westminster. The 

 alleged libel in this case was part of the same ar- 

 ticle that formed the subject of the former trial ; 

 and a verdict was recorded with 500 damages. 

 From this period a gradual change may be discerned 

 in the tone of Cobbett 's political disquisitions : 

 from being a hearty church and king man, he be- 

 came one of the foremost of radical reformers. 



For some years Cobbett was a grievous thorn 

 in the side of the ministry. At length, however, 

 an opportunity appeared to have arrived for put- 

 ting him to silence. His remarks in the Register 

 of the 10th of July, 1809, on the flogging of some 

 local militia-men at Ely, under the surveillance of 

 a German regiment, drew upon him a government 

 prosecution. The information was tried on the 

 15th of June, 1810, by a special jury, and Cobbett 

 was found guilty. On the 9th of July he was 

 brought up for judgment, and sentenced to be im- 

 prisoned for two years, to pay a fine of 10(X/ to 

 the king, and at the expiration of the two years to 

 give security for his good behaviour for seven 

 years, himself in 3000, and two securities in 

 1000 each. The fine was paid by a subscription 

 of his friends ; but Cobbett suffered the whole 

 term of imprisonment to which he had been sen- 

 tenced, and this incarceration he never forgot or 

 forgave. It increased the bitterness of his feelings 

 against the party who had the means of inflicting 

 it. On his liberation, his activity seemed to have j 

 received a fresh stimulus. He sought for every j 

 possible means of annoying those who sat at the j 

 helm of the state. He reduced the price of his ! 

 " Register," and called into existence that " Two- | 

 penny Trash," the sale of which is said to have 

 reached the unprecedented number of 100,000, but 

 which ultimately led the government to procure ! 

 the passing of the much talked of Six Acts. Mr j 

 Cobbett always asserted that these acts were passed 

 for the express purpose of silencing him. He ' 

 did not, however, wait for their operation, but in 

 April, 1817, made a timely flight to America. 

 There he remained till t'ie latter end of the year 

 1819. During a part of his stay in that country 

 he travelled with a view to the acquirement of 

 agricultural information, and the result was the 

 publication of the work which he entitled " A 

 Year's Residence in America." Meanwhile he was 

 otherwise industrious. He continued to annoy the 

 ministry at home by the publication of his wide- 

 spreading twopenny Register. This he composed 

 in America, and regularly transmitted to England. I 

 In the year 1819, the act which had driven him j 

 into exile was repealed, and Mr Cobbett returned I 

 to his native land, bringing with him the bones of 

 Tom Paine. 



On his arrival in England, Mr Cobbett added to 

 bis existing embarrassments by commencing a daily 

 newspaper a fearful undertaking for a man with- 

 out capital, and which ended as might have been 

 expected. After a career of about two months, '< 

 during the best part of the newspaper year, it was ' 

 relinquished with considerable loss. He was sub- 

 jected also to other inconveniences. Mr Cleary 1 



brought an action against him for libel ; Mr <.'ob- 

 bett defended himself with liis usual ability, and, 

 although the damages were laid at 3000, the jury 

 gave only 40s. In an action brought against him 

 a week after by Mr John Wright, his late partner 

 in the Register, &c., for three distinct, libels, he 

 was not so fortunate ; Mr Wright obtained a ver- 

 dict, with 1000 damages. 



After his return to England, renewing his atten- 

 tion to agriculture, Cobbett took a farm at Barnes 

 Elms, in Surrey, where he ;ittcmptcd to grow 

 several plants and trees indigenous to Americii. 

 and to introduce Indian corn as a staple article of 

 English produce. To further his views, he 

 published a Treatise on Cobbett's Corn ; printed a 

 number 01 his Register on paper made from the 

 husks, and established depots for the sale of its 

 flour and bread. The project, however, failed : he 

 resigned, after a few years, his farm at Barnes ; 

 and returned at last to the county from which he 

 came, where he rented of Col. Woodrooffe the 

 farm of Normandy, consisting of not more than 120 

 acres, about seven miles from Farnham. 



In 1820 he made an unsuccessful attempt to be 

 returned member for the city of Coventry. In 

 1826 he made another attempt to enter parliament. 

 The borough chosen for this Experiment was Pres- 

 ton ; but he was again unsuccessful. In 1825, he 

 published " The History of the Protestant Refor- 

 mation in England and Ireland." In this work he 

 declares Luther, Calvin, and Beza to be the 

 greatest ruffians that ever disgraced the world ; and 

 condemns their labours to contempt and derision. 

 Of course, the Romish priesthood had the work 

 translated into all the languages of the continent. 

 In 1829 was printed his " Advice to Young Men 

 and Women ;" a book abounding in excellent 

 maxims for conduct in life. About this period he 

 delivered, at several places throughout the empire, 

 a course of lectures on political economy. An ac- 

 count of his tour in Scotland, which country he 

 embraced in his travels, was published in a separate 

 volume. 



In 1831, Mr Cobbett was, for the eighth time in 

 his life, brought into a court of law on a charge of 

 libel. On the 7th of July, in that year, he was in 

 dieted before lord Tenterden and a special jury, 

 for " the publication in the ' Weekly Political 

 Register ' of a libel, with intent to raise discontent 

 in the minds of the labourers in husbandry, and to 

 excite them to acts of violence, and to destroy 

 corn-stacks, machinery, and other property." Mr 

 Cobbett defended himself in a speech which occu- 

 pied six hours. The jury, after mature considera- 

 tion, could not agree to a verdict ; six being of 

 one opinion, and six of another : they were conse- 

 quently discharged. 



On the dissolution of parliament, after the pass- 

 ing of the Reform Bill, in 1832, Mr Cobbett re- 

 ceived an invitation to become a candidate to re- 

 present Manchester. This he accepted, but almost 

 immediately afterwards was presented with a simi 

 lar invitation from Oldham. This he accepted also ; 

 his reason being, to use his own words, because " the 

 people knowing how difficult it would be to carry 

 an election for Manchester by mere voluntary sup- 

 port, came to the resolution to secure my return for 

 Oldham." At Manchester, he was at the bottom 

 of the list; but at Oldham he was triumphant. 

 Mr Cobbett was now in parliament. The attain- 

 ment of a seat there had long been the object of 

 his fondest ambition ; and the master wish was at 



